


Curses

by EnnAna



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Sickfic, mentions of puking, no Caduceus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-30
Updated: 2019-08-30
Packaged: 2020-09-30 21:02:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20453507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EnnAna/pseuds/EnnAna
Summary: They realize a bit too late that Molly doesn't seem to be feeling quite alright...





	Curses

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first time I've written for Critical Role! And the first time I've written in general in over a few years. 
> 
> I'm also new to D&D so if there's spells and such that don't make a whole lot of sense in-game then... I'm sorry. I tried to research a bit and I hope it's still enjoyable for you anyway hdfkhjdskdfgsg

Molly, Caleb realizes, is delirious.

He’s shaking uncontrollably and mumbling gibberish into Yasha’s shoulder, barely doing anything to hold onto her frame. She’s definitely doing all the work keeping him in her arms.

Quietly he hopes she can manage a bit more as they move through the pouring rain.

According to the dwarf they met at the edge of town, the Broom Brook Inn should be close by. Had they not had to stop by the stables to leave the horses and the cart, they could have spared their barbarian’s arms a few minutes of stress. But alas, here they were now.

Fjord reached the door first and held it open for all of them. Right behind him, soon as she was through, Jester made a beeline towards the bar, announcing, rather loudly, that they needed rooms and slapped her hands on the wood repeatedly for emphasis.

Yasha glances about the room for only a few seconds before hoisting Molly up, shushing his weak protests and moving towards the burning fireplace. She somehow manages to free one of her hands and grab a chair on the way, shoving it as close to the heat as she felt comfortable before gently placing the tiefling in it.

Initially he sags in it like a ragdoll, but then, as soon as Yasha’s hands leave him, he starts shivering again, pulling his knees up to his chest and pushing out a weak whine. She shushes him, removing her big, fluffy shawl and gently wrapping it around him.

Caleb walks in last, pulling the door behind him. And no soon is he walking in that Jester shoves a key into his hand. “They only have three rooms”

“I’ll stay with Mollymauk” Yasha declares. She’s pulled another chair from a nearby table and has sat down next to said tiefling, a hand thrown over his shoulder, rubbing and squeezing with every tremor.

“Me too” Beau says “ya know, just in case.”

As unusual as that is, it’s probably for the best. Molly still looks bad. In fact, he looks even worse now that he’s in the light and Caleb can get a proper look at him. He seems in a daze, rocking back and forth, eyes glazed over, staring unseeingly into the fire. His tail rests limply on the floor, twitching erratically every few seconds.

“I got us some food too.” Fjord adds as he takes a seat “We all need it. And maybe that would do him some good too…?”

Yasha nods, pulling Molly back when he sways a bit too close to the fire.

“Me and Nott are gonna take one room” Jester says as she also takes a place “I’m going to need lots of rest you guys. And in the morning, I’m gonna come and heal Molly okay Yasha?” she says as she shuffles and leans a bit too far with her chair to be face-to-face with the barbarian. She then glances back and adds “You guys can have the last room.”

“Ja, that sounds good.”

“Thank you Jester” Yasha smiles.

The cleric positively beams, Fjord pulling her chair back with an exasperated sigh just as a young human girl arrives and starts placing plates of food around the table. A few moments later she returns with a few more as well as some mugs of warm tea and milk.

Yasha quickly takes a few bites of her serve and downs her drink before grabbing the bowl of soup and turning over to Mollymauk.

Caleb tries not to stare, but he catches himself stealing glances every now and then. Yasha and Molly seem caught in their own little bubble, completely unaffected with the loud chatter of Jester and Beau encouraging Nott to stuff as many potatoes in her mouth as she could. Instead, the purple tiefling was very quietly whining, shaking his head and moving away from the food and more into Yasha’s side.

“Molly, please” He hears her whisper softly “you haven’t eaten anything for two days… just take a few bites. Please?”

It’s true. None of them really took notice of it, none but Yasha, who, he remembers, had asked a few times if Molly was sure he didn’t want to have a bite of anything. In retrospect, he should have seen it too. He should have seen all the signs before it got this bad.

If he thinks back, it probably started three days ago, after the morning when they fought that red witch. That noon, Mollymauk had only drank a few mugs during their celebration and he only took a bite of pork, shifting his almost untouched plate over to Nott after. He remembers him sitting down with him, away from the noise, nursing his head. Fjord mentioned the day after that he helped Molly during the night. He’d thrown up. But none of them said anything. It didn’t, at the time, feel like anything more than an upset stomach.

He hadn’t put much thought into how Molly refused breakfast and lunch, how he went to bed early, how he seemed more quiet, less focused on the conversations. He hadn’t noticed how, during the wolf fight, he’d taken a few more blows than he usually would, how his moves were less graceful.

He hadn’t noticed a thing until Beau yelled from the cart for Jester. Until he glanced over and saw the two of them worrying over a passed out Molly, breathing heavily, shaking and sweating.

But they had ran out of potions. Molly had _given_ his to Beau just a few hours earlier, damn him. And Jester had tapped out too.

It took Yasha a few minutes of quiet pleading and light slaps to get Molly to wake up again, and when he did his eyes were glossy and unfocused. It took him a full three minutes to be able to focus on the women around him and croak out a “I don’t –“ before emptying out whatever was in his stomach.

Fjord had been the one to pull the map out and, together with Calleb himself, quickly pinpoint their location and make the decision to go to the closest town. It wasn’t big by any means, they wouldn’t find anything like a cleric here. If they were lucky they might find someone with some weak healing potions, but it was the best they had. They needed to get Molly out of the worsening weather, out of the cold and the road and somewhere warm, where whatever this was wouldn’t get worse.

And now here they are.

Yasha sighs, placing the untouched bowl of soup back on the table. She then turns to the table and put her hand out “Give me the key. I’m going to take him to bed.”

“Oh” Beau blinks a few times, looking away from Nott “Oh. No, I’ll come with.”

Yasha just nods, moving about to gently pick up Molly again. He seems to struggle between wanting to snuggle in to her or wiggle away, but soon decides on the former. His hands cling to the materials of her clothes, head burying it her shoulder. And as the three of them walk away, Caleb tries not to hone in on the sounds of quiet hiccups and sobs.

When the girls disappear from sight, Fjord sights tiredly, pulling Yasha’s almost untouched mug and takes a swing of her ale. “Caleb, do you by any chance know what could have done this? Maybe if you remember any specific detail that could help?”

Before he has a chance to answer, Nott jumps up and stage-whispers “I bet it was that witch from a few days ago.”

“The one with the ugly red dress?” Jester inquires, looking up from her sketchbook.

“Yeah! Yeah! Remember, I went with Molly to the staircase and we’re the ones that found her first! And before you guys came, she threw some rocks at us!”

“Rocks? What kind of rocks?”

“Oh, very colorful ones! They weren’t gems or anything, just rocks. I dodged them but a yellow and a green one hit Molly.” With that she turns to Caleb, eyes wide “Do you think those rocks could have been cursed?”

“Cursed?” Fjord frowns.

Jester whips around to stare at Nott and then Caleb “A curse?”

“Ja, well… it could be? It is not uncommon to cast curses on objects. Once they are touched or activated in some way they take effect on the individual. It… ja, that could be it.”

“Oh…”

“Jester…” Fjord draws out “is something wrong?”

“Well I… I mean…” she seems to struggle a bit for words, hands playing anxiously with her pencil. She bites her lip a bit and then sights loudly “Well I don’t know if I can cure curses, you know? I mean… I’m sure if I ask the Traveler he’ll teach me! But I don’t know how to do that. None of my spells do that, you know, so…”

A beat of silence “oh…”

“But!!” She quickly adds, going back to her cheery demeanor “Like I said you guys, I can ask the Traveler to teach me ok!? So like, in the morning I’ll go to Molly, cuz you know, I promised and then if it doesn’t help then I’ll just talk to the Traveler and then it’ll be fine! No problem!” Before any of them could reply to that, she got up, pulled her sketchbook and rushed to the stairs “I’ll go sleep now!! Good night!”

Nott gives Caleb a quick look and then jumps off her chair, following suit and yelling a “Good night!”

After a beat of silence, Fjord downs the ale and starts getting up “Well, we should probably get going as well. Would do us all good to get some rest.”

“Ja, you are not wrong.”

_____

Fjord was still sleeping when Caleb woke up the next morning, at exactly eight thirty-seven. He quietly gets dressed and goes downstairs, where Beau seems to be nursing a warm drink, looking worse for wear.

That’s not good.

“Guten morgen”

“Morning…” She grumbles out, sounding _very_ tired.

“I uhh, I am assuming you did not get much sleep then?”

She pushes out a humorless laugh, though it dies quickly “No, not really. No. It was… well it was pretty fucking bad to be honest. You know, I feel like this shit keeps getting worse every hour. He’s got a fever and I didn’t know this! But apparently when tieflings have a fever they overheat like crazy, so even when I was sitting on the other bed, the one that’s across the room? I could _still_ feel the heat coming off him. And he moved around all night and he threw up again and – what _the fuck_ does he even _have_ to vomit?! He doesn’t eat shit! It was disgusting!”

And he has no doubt that it’s true, but Beau’s hands were shaking. Behind her annoyed bravado, it was pretty clear seeing Molly like that was affecting her a little more than she liked.

“- but Jester said it at least helped with the headache so I _guess_ it was good she came by anyway, but now that she’s gone and locked herself in the room who knows how long it’s going to take!? I’ve seen her in one of these “study sessions” before man, she took like three hours! I don’t really-“

“Beau”

“- want to have to wait -“

“Beau”

“- or for him to wait cuz –“

“Beauregard please.” He puts one hand on her shoulder “I know you are worried, as we all are. But have faith in Jester. It is like you said, she has learned like this before, and it proved to be, uhh, quite successful, yes? If it helps, in the end, it is going to be alight. Molly will manage to wait a bit more.”

She nods, rubbing a hand over her face.

“And if you would like” He hastily adds when he notices Fjord making his way down the stairs “our room is free. Maybe you should take a nap?”

For a second or two, she seems to be seriously considering his invitation but “No thanks. I’m good. Besides, I just came down to grab some breakfast. When it’s done, I’m gonna bring it upstairs to Yasha and Molly.” Then she grabs her tea and lifts it up in mock salute “Here’s to hoping he eats.”

All too soon, two plates of food and one portion of what looks to be porridge is placed on their table and Beau starts getting up. Caleb hesitates for just a moment before standing as well and grabbing the bowl “I will help you carry these.” It’s a tell of just how tired she is, perhaps, that she doesn’t even bother to pretend to protest. Just nods and heads for the stairs.

And soon Caleb realizes she wasn’t joking when she said Molly’s fever could be felt throughout the room. It was quite uncomfortable and more than a little disgusting, mixed with the smell of sweat and sickness.

Yasha looks up and visibly sags at the sight of the plates.

In her arms, Mollymauk doesn’t seem to have noticed the new presences in the room. He’s snuggled up between Yasha’s legs, underneath all the bed sheets with her furs resting on his lower half. His face has a tint of red in it, covered by beads of sweat and slightly damp strands of hair. But he at least seems calmer than the night before. His head rests on her stomach and his shaking hands seem to be playing with some loose strings.

Yasha is holding his tail in her hand.

Caleb considers inquiring as to why, when he’s startled by a rather aggressive looking full-body twitch. And upon closer inspection, as he places the food on the bed-side table, he notices the little bumps and bruises on the tips of the tail and he understands. He must have hit it a few too many times.

“Thank you.”

“It is no problem. How, umm, how are you feeling?”

If she is tired, or in any way bothered by the situation, she does not let it show “I’m alright. I don’t –“ Whatever she was about to say is lost in a startled gasp as Molly suddenly turns around and pushes over her leg and over the bed and gags. Badly.

Caleb has just enough time to jump back before whatever little fluids and bites the tiefling had managed to down the night before all come spilling on the floor.

“Oh Molly…”

He can hear Beau sigh and grab a bucket and a piece of cloth somewhere behind him.

Yasha also sighs, placing the bowl back from where she’d picked it up a mere few seconds ago. “Well… no breakfast for a while then.” She wipes Molly’s mouth and forehead and helps him settle back down, rubbing circles in his back.

Caleb feels quite useless, if he’s being honest. He watches Beau swiftly clean up the bile and tries not to think back to his time in the asylum. Tries not to remember how it was like to be in the tiefling’s position, unable to move or talk or care for himself in any shape or form, how he had to rely on other people for the smallest thing.

And suddenly the room is too unbearingly hot and his breath hiccups in his throat.

So he takes the bucket and offers to switch out the water for them and later, when he’s pouring clean water and he can breathe properly again, he’ll feel bad for not being able to hold himself together to help his friend. But that is later. Right now, he’s just happy to be out and feel fresh air.

_____

It’s four in the evening when Jester bursts out of her room with a look of pure adrenaline and determination. She marches down the corridor, completely ignoring Caleb, Nott and Fjord who had just gotten back from a quick shopping trip. She doesn’t even notice the bag of doughnuts the half-orc had bought for her. No. She just strides right past and gives one loud bang on Yasha’s door before walking in, not bothering to wait to be called over.

The three of them share a look and follow, peeking from the doorway.

Beau, who seems to have been sitting on the bed with Yasha and Molly until just then is shuffling off, glaring at the tiefling and grumbling about her being “Too loud when you’re dealing with a sick person, you know?”

But Jester just pokes her tongue out her way and then moves to sit on the bed.

Mollymauk initially wiggles away, whining and weakly batting her hand away. She doesn’t take it to heart thought, just shushes him, whispering something along the lines of “Don’t be such a baby and let me heal you.” She all but straddles him, one hand gripping her Holy Symbol while the other is gently placed on his forehead. She closes her eyes and focuses for a few moments, mumbling incantations and prayers and then magic starts to pour through her fingertips.

They all watch with battered breath as Molly seems to still once it happens, eyes closing and eyebrows creasing.

It’s all over in a minute.

Jester sits back, seemingly examining her work. Then she turns around and beams “All done!”

“Seriously?” Beau asks, incredulous.

“Yep! I mean, mostly. It’s gonna go away in a few hours, but I did technically cure him, technically. Now we just gotta wait a bit, you know?”

“Jester, how much is a few hours?” Fjord asks. He’s moved into the room and is now glancing down at Mollymauk who, for his part, seems to have fallen asleep.

“Umm, well the Traveler said it’s gonna depend, you know, so I’m not actually sure. But like, he’s been sick for a few days right, so maybe like a day?” She taps her chin repeatedly, but she does not look worried, so Caleb takes it as a good sign. “Basically, you know, he’s gotta get out what’s left in him, so. Nothing more to do here people!”

Beau and Fjord shush her, but she just laughs and goes to leave “No worries, no worries! He’ll be just as new!” and after another beat “Fjord, were those doughnuts I smelled earlier? I’m _so_ hungry!”

True to Jester’s words, during the rest of the evening, Molly’s fever seems to be decreasing and he becomes more and more aware of his surroundings.

One of the first things he does when he wakes up is to look up, squint and mumble “Yasha…? Where…? Oh… Beau, since when have you been here?” and then pass back out.

Beau tries _very hard_ not to show how freaked out she is by Molly’s statement, considering she has only really left the room maybe a total of one hour since they got here. But Yasha seems ecstatic to have heard his voice and seen his eyes manage to focus on something.

Throughout the night, he wakes up a couple of times, dizzy and a bit confused, but more responsive to the world around him. Sometime around three in the morning he even eats a little. Yes, he throws it up just an hour later, but it’s progress nonetheless.

In the morning, when Jester gets Caleb to help her carry some food up to their room, Molly is sitting up. He’s still cuddled up in Yasha’s lap, all bundled up and warm, and he still has a little fever and coughs pitifully every minute or so, but he’s up, chatting quietly and (alarmingly) amicably with Beau. He drinks all the tea gratefully and even asks for another mug and he eats half of the porridge bowl.

During dinner that same day, with a little support from the girls and clad in Yasha’s fur, he ventures downstairs and they all eat together for the first time in almost a week.

Molly isn’t as energetic as they’re used to just yet, but he still laughs and talks loudly. He jokes around and flirts with the human girl working the bar, giving her a pretty blush and a reading, shortly followed by one for Jester and another for Nott. And after a bit of prodding, one for Beau. One that is immediately contested and ends with the two of them throwing snappy remarks to one another until Molly almost coughs his lungs out, by which point the monk shoves water in his hands and mutters “If this is your way of proving that the Death card was a fact, you can drop it”

He goes to bed early still, in the sense that when he starts getting drowsy Yasha just pulls him in her arms and carries him upstairs, yelling a “Good night” to the rest of them. And, of course, Molly plays along, draping over her in a dramatic fashion, giving her a peck and calling her his knight in shiny armor.

By the following day, his fever is gone, he eats healthily and doesn’t feel off in any way. He’s a bit stiff and his memory of those few days is kind of foggy, but otherwise, he’s great. Perfect in fact.

He does a few tricks, tumbles and does some cartwheels. Jester tries to play with him too, not seeming to mind the fact she has no grace in her movements and usually lands on her ass.

As Fjord and Yasha retrieve the cart and horses, he teaches Nott and Jester how to juggle with a few apples and challenges Beau to try doing it with his swords. Thankfully, with the arrival of the cart, no one has to try and stop her before she manages to cut her fingers off.

As they leave the town, Fjord and Caleb sit at the front, looking over the map, pinpointing the best route to take to get back on track with their initial course of action. Nott clears out her pockets and starts rearranging her collection of buttons, stones and jewelry while Jester pulls out her sketchbook and starts doodling a rather crude caricature of Beau juggling swords while she sits on top of Yasha’s shoulders. The Aasimar herself looks the sketch over and cracks a smile.

Molly has managed to shudder off most of the aftermath of the curse. His joints feel a bit stiff here and there and he gets a wave of dizziness every time he moves abruptly, but otherwise he feels fine. He feels healthy and aware and he can’t help but smile from where he’s leaning into Beau and mumble out a soft but sincere

“Thanks guys”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!!


End file.
